William turned to order as much fire oil directed at the frontmost ships as possible. The flames exploded along the entire length of the balcony. William was thrown backward as if batted by a blinding hand of fire, and lay stunned on the floor of the palace balcony. Blinking away tears, he could barely see, and everything was tinged red.
After a moment he realized his eyes were burned and bloody. The only reason he wasn’t completely blind was that he had glanced behind him when the attack occurred. He felt around and saw a dim shape next to him, which groaned when he touched it. A pair of hands lifted him and a voice said, “Marshal?”
He recognized the voice of one of the pages, who had been standing back in the room. “What happened?” William asked in a hoarse croak.
“Flames erupted along the wall, and everyone . . . is burned.”
“Captain Reynard?”
“I think he’s dead, sir.”
Voices from the hall shouted and men came running in. “Who’s there?” William could see only shadowy shapes.
“Lieutenant Franklin, my lord.”
“Water, please,” said William, and he felt the Lieutenant take his from the squire, holding him up as he made his way to a chair. In his nose he could smell only the stench of his own burned hair and flesh, and no matter how he blinked, he couldn’t clear his eyes of the blinding red tears.
Once he was sitting, William said, “Lieutenant, tell me what is happening.”
The Lieutenant ran to the balcony. “They’re sending men ashore. It’s a dreadful fire we’re pouring on them, but they’re coming, sir.”
The squire brought a basin of water and a clean cloth and William applied it to his face. The pain was incredible, but he used a trick taught him as a child by one of his teachers at Stardock to ignore it. The water didn’t help his vision much, and he considered that he might be blinded for what would be the remainder of his life, however short that might be.
The loud sound of wood shattering followed by shouts and the sounds of fighting below caused William to ask, “Lieutenant, would you please tell me what is happening in the courtyard?”
The Lieutenant said, “Sir, they’ve crashed the royal dock. Enemy soldiers are landing.”
William said to the squire, “Son, would you please help me to my feet?”
The boy said, “Yes, my lord,” attempting to sound calm, but failing to hide the fear in his voice.
William felt young arms around his waist as he stood. “Turn me toward the door,” he said calmly. The sounds of fighting were now echoing from the halls outside the room, as well as coming from the courtyard below as enemy warriors mounted the flight of stairs leading to William’s command center. “Lieutenant Franklin,” said William.
“Sir?” came the calm reply.
“Stand on my left, sir.”
The officer did as he was bidden, and William slowly pulled his sword from its scabbard. “Stand behind me boy,” he said softly as the sound of fighting in the halls grew louder.
The boy did as he was asked, but he kept a firm grip around the Knight-Marshal’s waist, helping the injured man stand upright.
William wished he had something to say that would make this better for the boy, but he knew it would end in terror and pain. He just prayed it was quick. As the sounds of fighting got closer, and those remaining soldiers in the room rushed to defend the door, William finally said, “Page?”
“Sir,” came the soft, fearful voice from behind him.
“What is your name?”
“Terrance, sir.”
“Where are you from?”
“My father is the Squire of Belmont, sir.”
“You’ve done well. Now help me stand fast. It wouldn’t do to have the Knight-Marshal of Krondor die on his knees.”
“Sir . . .”From the boy’s voice, William could tell he was crying.
Suddenly there was a shout, and William saw a shadowy form heading toward him. He heard more than felt the blade of Lieutenant Franklin slash out, and the attacker fell back.
Another shadow appeared to the left of the first, on William’s right hand, and the nearly blind Knight-Marshal of Krondor lashed out with his sword.
Then William, child of Pug the magician and Katala of the Thuril Hill People, born on an alien world, felt pain, quickly followed by darkness.
James moved slowly through the knee-deep sludge. The echoes of fighting rang through the sewers and his men walked with swords drawn. They opened shuttered lanterns from time to time to get their bearings, but mostly they negotiated through the murk by the faint light that came from above as they passed below culverts and drains from the streets.
“We’re here,” said a voice.
“Give the signal,” said James, and a shrill whistle was blown.
One of the men kicked open a door and James could hear other doors being opened nearby. He followed the first two men into the cellar, and up a flight of stairs. They burst into a room illuminated by candlelight because it was still below ground level.
As James expected, resistance was light, but he was almost split by a crossbow bolt fired from behind a table, overturned to provide shelter. “Stop shooting!” he shouted. “We’re not here to fight.”
A moment of silence was followed by a voice saying, “James?”
“Hello, Lysle.”
A tall old man stood up from behind the table and said, “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Well, I thought as long as I was passing by, I’d give you a chance to get out of here.”
“Things are that bad?”
“Worse,” said the Duke, motioning for the man who went by Lysle Rigger, Brian, Henry, and a dozen other names, but who, by any name, was the Upright Man, the leader of Krondor’s Guild of Thieves: the Mockers. James looked around. “Things haven’t changed much—except it used to be more crowded.”
The man whom James would always think of as Lysle said, “Most of the brethren are out of the city, running for their lives.”
“You stayed?”
Lysle shrugged. “I’m an optimist.” Then he said, “Or a fool.” He sighed. “It’s a tiny Kingdom, the Mockers, but it’s my Kingdom.”
James said, “True. Come along. There’s one place we may survive.”
James and his soldiers took Lysle and a scruffy assortment of thieves in tow and moved back into the sewers. “Where are we going?” asked Lysle as they slogged their way through the muck.
“You know where the river enters the city beside the abandoned mill?”
“The one that’s paved over?”
“That’s the one,” said Jimmy. “We used it when we were smuggling with Trevor Hull and his lot, too many years ago to remember. If you’d been in Krondor when the Mockers and Hull’s smugglers were working together, you’d have known about it. There’s a huge staging area we’ve been stocking for months.”
“For months?” said Lysle. “How did you manage that without us noticing?”
Laughing, James said, “From above. We did it during the day, when you and your thieves were asleep below ground.”
“Why did you come fetch me?”
James said, “Well, you are the only brother I know about, so I couldn’t let you die alone in that basement.”
“Brother? Are you sure?”
“Sure enough to wager on it.”
“I’ve wondered about that,” said Lysle. “Do you remember your mother?”
“A little,” said James. “She was murdered when I was a toddler.”
“At the Sign of the Boar’s Head?”
“I don’t know. It could be. I was taken off the streets and raised by the Mockers. You?”
“I was seven when my mother was killed. I had a little brother. I thought he was dead, too. I was packed off to Romney and raised there.”
“Father didn’t want both his sons close by, I guess. Maybe we were targets for whoever killed our mother.”
As they reached a huge intersection of culverts, with water f
lowing down from above to spray the center of the passages, Lysle said, “I always thought it odd that my foster parents in Romney raised me to work for a thief in Krondor.”
“Well,” said James as they moved around the small waterfall, “we’ll never know. Father is dead many years and we can’t ask him.”
“Did you ever find out who he was? I never did.”
James grinned in the dark. “Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. I heard his voice once and heard it again many years later, and after doing some snooping, I sussed out who was the original Upright Man.”
“Who was he?”
“Did you ever have the displeasure of meeting a particularly surly and evil chandler whose shop was down by the south point, near the palace?”
“Can’t say as I remember one like that. What was his name?”
“Donald. If you’d met him, you’d have remembered him, as he was a right nasty piece of work.”
“A bit of a criminal genius, though.”
“Like father, like sons,” said James.
Reaching a place in the long passage where they were walking up an incline, Lysle said, “Are we going to get out of this alive?”
“Probably not,” answered James, “but then no one gets out of life alive, do they?”
“There is that. But you have a hedge?”
“You always hedge a bet,” said James. “If there’s a way to get out of here alive, this is it.” He indicated a large doorway, big enough to accommodate a wagon and team.
“I see what you mean about being able to smuggle through here,” said Lysle as two soldiers opened the huge wooden doors. They swung open silently, showing recent attention, and inside, a bright light illuminated a hundred soldiers, readying with bows, crossbows, and swords.
“Here we are.”
Lysle let out a soft whistle of appreciation. “I see you plan a warm welcome for whoever comes this way.”
“Far warmer than you imagine,” said James.
He motioned for Lysle and his half-dozen Mockers to enter and said, “Welcome to the last bastion in Krondor.”
After James and those with him were inside, the doors were shut with a loud crack that had the ring of finality to it.
Erik heard the trumpet and instantly began shouting orders. They had been constantly fighting with smaller elements of the invading forces, and had reports that similar fighting had begun near the sea gate, the northwestern gate. And at that point only a few men had been sighted near the southern gate of the city, which was fine with Erik, as he had ordered as many men to the northern gate as possible. Both gates fed refugees in a steady stream to the eastbound King’s Highway. And a mile east of where Erik and his companies stood, the two streams of humanity would come together, forming a clogging, slow-moving body of tired, frightened, and desperate people.
Erik’s mandate was to defend the rear of that column of Kingdom citizens as long as possible. Erik knew that meant halfway from here to Ravensburg, if he was to judge things. At some point the enemy would likely cease harrying them. They had a city to sack and stores to replenish, and while the invaders were winning many battles, they were still disadvantaged from the long sea voyage.
Of the Saaur, Erik had seen little, and he wondered why they were being withheld after the first contact. He couldn’t spend much time trying to outwit his adversary, for there was too much to react to: the enemy was hurling small squads of raiders at his position. The battles were short and intense, and Erik had won them all, but the men were tiring and his casualties were mounting.
He had commandeered a wagon in which he had loaded his wounded, sending them east with the refugees. Now he heard the trumpet telling him the gates were to close, and as he started organizing a retreat, a young boy came riding up to him. “Captain?”
“Yes, son, what is it?” Erik saw the boy was dressed in the uniform of a palace page. Tears were streaming down his face.
“Lord William ordered me to tell you to withdraw.”
Erik knew that, from the trumpet, so he had no idea why the boy was here. “What else?”
“I’m to go with you.”
Then Erik understood. At least one of the palace boys was spared. “Ride east, and you’ll find a wagon with wounded in it. Attach yourself to them, and help tend the injured.”
“Yes, sir.”
The boy rode off and Erik returned to the business of managing a retreat. Everything he had read in William’s library had told him an orderly retreat was the most difficult thing to accomplish in a battle. The tendency to turn and run was nearly overwhelming, and fighting a rear-guard action was alien to men who had been taught to move forward when fighting.
But he had discussed this with William in theory over the last two years, and in particular since getting his new command earlier in the week, and Erik was determined that no force of his would be turned to rout.
Throughout the afternoon the sounds of battle carried to Erik from distant locations, even though his command was being left alone. He decided it was because the invaders were in the city and didn’t see the need to press the attack from the south or east.
He also knew that would change once James and William sprang their surprises.
A distant thud and, a moment later, a huge plume of dark smoke, and Erik knew the first of their nasty surprises was unleashed. Barrels of Quegan fire oil had been lashed to the supports of the docks, as well as laid in the basements and lower floors of the buildings that faced them, back for three city blocks. At the moment they were fired, the entire waterfront of the city erupted in a conflagration few could imagine, and the enemy soldiers within a hundred feet of any building were dead. Those not burned to a cinder died from lack of air as the fire stole it from their lungs.
Erik cast a glance to the southwest, toward the palace, dreading the thought that the Emerald Queen’s soldiers might be within the keep. Then a shattering blast sounded and Erik knew what had happened.
A lieutenant whom Erik didn’t know well, named Ronald Bumaris, said, “What was that, Captain?”
Erik said, “That was the palace, Lieutenant.”
The lieutenant said nothing, waiting for orders. After a half hour, the flood of humanity out of the northernmost gate in the city fell off to a trickle, and Erik ordered his men to form up for a rear guard.
He watched as the civilians moved eastward, toward the coming night, and then he turned to the west, as fires burned in the distance, and he waited.
Honest John’s was doing its usual business, and Macros and Miranda moved through the crowd. They waved politely to their host, but declined his invitation to a drink. They moved purposely to the stairs and mounted them to the upper concourse, to the gallery of shops.
Reaching the shop of Mustafa, they entered. The old man looked up and said, “So it’s you again?”
“Yes,” said Miranda.
“Did you catch up to Pug?”
Miranda smiled. “You could say so.”
“What can I do for you? A divination?”
Miranda sat in the chair opposite the old fortune-teller, and said, “Do you recognize my father?”
Mustafa squinted. “No, should I?”
“I am Macros.”
“Oh,” said the old fortune-teller. “I heard you were dead. Or missing. Something like that.”
“I need information,” said Miranda.
“I deal in such.”
“I need a way into the world of Shila.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” said Mustafa. “It’s overrun by demons. Some idiot unsealed the barrier between the Fifth Circle and that world, and now it is just gone to hell.”
Macros laughed a dry laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Why do you need to go there?”
“To close two rifts,” said Miranda. “One between Shila and Midkemia, then one between Shila and the demon realm.”
“That’s difficult.” The old man rubbed his chin. “I have information that would prove useful,
I think. I can tell you a doorway to a location not far from the city of Ahsart, which is where I think you want to go.”
“How do you know that?” asked Macros.
“I wouldn’t be much of a dealer in information if I didn’t know that, would I?”
“How much?” asked Miranda.
Mustafa set a price, the souls of a dozen children who had never been born, and Miranda stood up. “Perhaps Querl Dagat will prove less outrageous in his price.”
At the mention of one of his chief rivals, Mustafa said, “Wait a minute! Make me a counteroffer.”
“I have a Word of Power, one that will gain you a greater wish.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You have to cast it on Midkemia.”
The old man sighed. “Midkemia, by all reports, is presently a less than hospitable place.”
“That’s one of the reasons we need to close those portals. If we do, then once the mess is cleaned up, you can travel to Midkemia, cast your wish, and be back before you know it.”
Sighing, the old man said, “I would like to lose a few years. I don’t age here, as you know, but I discovered the Hall late in life, and most of the youth cures I’ve discovered involve less than appealing requirements, such as eating the still-beating heart of your lover, or murdering babies in their cradles. My ethics do not permit such.”
“If I were you,” suggested Miranda, “I’d wish for eternal good health. You can be young and still have problems.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I don’t suppose you have two of those wishes, do you?”
Miranda shook her head.
“Very well, I’ll take it.”
“Done.”
The old fortune-teller reached under the table and pulled out a map. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to a large black square surrounded on four sides by lines that curved away after touching. “When you leave, tell the door witch you want exit number six hundred fifty-nine.” His finger stabbed the map. “That will put you here. Go right, move down sixteen doors on the right—remember, the doors are staggered and if you count on the left, you’ll go through the wrong one. The sixteenth door will open into a cave on Shila, about one day’s ride by horse to Ahsart. I assume travel once you’re there won’t be a problem.”